Julia Mendes
Julia Mendes (née Kaufmann, adopted von Anstetten and formerly Sander) is the daughter of Clarissa von Anstetten and Arno Brandner. She has a twin brother, Jan Brandner. She was engaged to Gero von Sterneck when she first met her twin brother, Jan Brandner, and fell in love with him without knowing it was her brother. After rejecting her love for him, she married Tim Sander, who got her pregnant. Eventually, she realized she couldn't live without Jan, and left her husband, who was later killed by Tanja von Lahnstein. She went to Spain where she met Ricardo Mendes, who became her new husband and father to her son Timo on the Spanish island of Mallorca. In 2011, Jan ended up working on the island as a priest, which caused them to have feeligs for each other again. They tried to fight them and act as a normal family, but that plan failed, and so Julia left Ricardo in the end, and went to Lanzarote to be with Jan. Biography The death of her first husband Julia married Tim Sander in 1997, but their marriage was not working out, so she left him. However, she got pregnant by Tim. Eventually her husband was killed, and at that point she took back her old surname von Anstetten. She went to Spain and met with Ricardo Mendes, whom she got close to. At the birth of Julia's son, named Timo after his father, Ricardo decided to adopt Timo. After that Ricardo and Julia got married, and settled down on Mallorca. She kept in touch with her father, Arno Brandner, who told her in 2001 that her mother's plane had crashed, and that her mother Clarissa von Anstetten was presumed dead. Arno visited Julia and her family every once in a while, but Julia did not want to talk about Jan, unlike Arno. And so the two had an argument and didn't contact each other for four years. Clarissa lives In 2011, on Julia's birthday, Arno called Julia, reaching her mailbox. At first Julia did not want to call back, but changed her mind later on. This resulted in Arno visiting the family. All went smoothly until Clarissa suddenly appeared on the island. When Julia saw her for the firs time, she was shocked and didn't want to have anything to do with her mother. But Clarissa, Arno and Ricardo kept reaching out to her, until eventually she forgave her mother. After getting used to talking to her mother again, the family decided to tell Julia's son Timo that Clarissa is his grandmother. Timo did not take the news very well, and refused to talk to his grandmother. Problems with the family Eventually Timo accepted his grandmother, but this was not the last thing his family was going to shock him with. A little while later he discovered that Ricardo was not his father. He wouldn't talk to his parents for some time before getting over this. All the secrets also got Ricardo suspicious of Julia, and when she went out with Jan once, he thought Jan was Julia's lover. At that point Julia confessed that Jan was her twin brother. Clarissa also backed this up, and Ricardo believed it. But then another problem appeared - Timo and Leonie Richter, Jan's daughter, had become a couple. The family was forced to tell them that they were cousins, since Jan and Julia were twins. Eventually the truth about the past of Jan and Julia and their feelings for each other got out, which shocked the entire family. Ricardo had suspected it from their act, and his fears were confirmed by a series of letters Julia wrote to Jan each year. Timo found out by catching his mother and uncle together in bed. Ricardo and Timo had a really hard time forgiving Julia. Julia eventually left Ricardo, telling him that there is no future for them, while she was prepared to fight her feelings for Jan if that meant not losing her son. Timo eventually let down, and allowed his mother to go be with Jan. Interests One of the things that has always interested Julia was photography. Family tree Notes *In January 1995, Julia celebrated her birthday on the first Verbotene Liebe episode. In 2011, when she came back to the show, she also celebrated her birthday, but this time it was in June. Category:Original cast Category:1995 Category:1996 Category:1997 Category:2011 Category:Mallorca Category:2012 Category:Anstetten family